this guy has a way with words! -
Fastened to a Dying Animal
By Phil Rockstroh
April 29, 2008
Here in this crumbling empire once known as the American Republic,
here in a nation that, at present, for all practical purposes, only
produces Cheetos and killer drones, whose architecture is being
winnowed down to thriving rural meth houses and foreclosed upon
suburban mchouses, whose corrupt corporate culture has bequeathed
upon our suffering planet dying oceans and the hyper-caffeinated
tsunami of Red Bull Capitalism -- the essential question confronts us
-- how does one retain (not retail) one's humanity amid the
catastrophic machinery and inane accouterment of our age?
"Show your wounds," exhorted the late 20th Century artist Joseph
Boyce. The wound becomes the womb, poets tell us.
Out of painful truth, beauty is born. But, antithetical to the
orthodoxies of consumer capitalism, there are no shortcuts.
According to legend, Faust sold his soul for a glimpse of eternal
beauty and the hidden knowledge of the world. Sadly, we've done
likewise (but worse, pathetically) for a glimpse of Paris Hilton's
privileged (but hardly gated and guarded) cooter.
Here, now, sprawled upon the detritus of our dignity, we are
confronted by the exponential dynamics of decay known as the U.S.
Presidential Election cycle. In this, all three corporate candidates
are of little use to us.
Although all three have done very well for themselves by the present
and prevailing arrangement known as Disaster Capitalism.
What motivation do they have to change the system by which they've
thrived? McCain, Clinton, and Obama must serve the interests of the
corrupt corporate class -- or else they would be marginalized.
Paradoxically, as we have witnessed, as of late, if they make even
the most minute rumblings to the contrary -- as for example,
blundering into a steaming pile of the obvious such as the
observation that the battered laboring class of the nation might be
embittered by their lot --- they risk political immolation by being
labeled an elitist.
Of course, Obama is an elitist. (As are Clinton and McCain.)
And he has been put on notice by the Powers That Be that they have no
problem with him being among their ranks, as long as he doesn't go
rattling off at the mouth about those the rigged system benefits and
those it kicks daily in the gut.
Because in a political culture as far down the rabbit hole as is this
one, the surest way to be branded an elitist is to refuse to serve
the elite. (Not that Obama threatened any such thing.)
This is the modus operandi of the lacquered, autoerotic dudes and
dolls of the corporate media and the K Street cash-flushed phonies of
the American political classes: Pose as protecters of the beer-bleary
multitudes, as, all the while, carrying vintage Cabernet for a
privileged few.
This is not a situation fraught with layers of ambiguity in which any
deeper meaning can be mined: Below the corporate media's electronic
cloud of nebulous phoniness lies a dense core of calcified phoniness.
Thus it is difficult not to harbor contempt for this cartel of
narcissistic strivers who have networked the nation into a perpetual
state of cataclysmic ignorance.
Seemingly, their creed is: Let the ignorant multitudes languish on
the low nutrient, junk news we serve them from the drive thru windows
of our corporate media outlets, while the political and business
elite cannibalize what is left of the republic.
The ongoing tragedy in Iraq and the ecological and economic turmoil
roiling the globe are consequences of the domination-driven mindset
that the mainstream media protects. Ergo, increasingly violent
responses from outside forces, both of the human and natural variety,
are rising across the planet.
America, many shocks and sorrows are coming soon (probably sooner
than you think) to that vacuous bubble known as "your way of life."
It should be increasingly clear to see that the corporate media's job
has never been to be unbiased chroniclers of the events and
circumstances of a free republic.
Rather, they are active agents serving to protect and promulgate the
pernicious myths of free market capitalism. And they are a highly
partisan lot.
Moreover, they have been highly successful in their mission. Hence,
our lives, both inner and outer, have been conquered and colonized by
the corporate empire, and a resultant forced occupation dominates our
days determining the trajectory of our brief lives upon this earth.
"[S]ick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity."
-- W.B. Yeats
Yet, we, against all evidence, believe we are free actors in a
spontaneous, unfolding democratic drama. When, in reality, we have
been cast as dehumanized supernumeraries in a lethal farce that
renders all concerned both oppressor and oppressed.
This is the central paradox that binds us. And it is why the average
American cannot see our imperial occupation of Iraq and our
increasingly dangerous belligerence towards Iran for what it is.
How can we have a modicum of empathy for the people of Iraq when we
refuse to even glimpse our own degraded condition and our complicity
therein?
"God Damn America," the people of Sadr City must rage, as the bombs
shake their homes and tear the flesh from their friends and family.
"God Damn, America," I mutter, echoing the good Reverend Wright, as I
witness the indifference of the American people to the war crimes
committed by our nation's leaders.
By the insidious technique of propaganda by omission, the public has
been manipulated into a state approaching criminal obliviousness.
"What is this crazy talk about the calamity of class stratification
that defines and divides the nation, and what sort of demented,
leftist loser would even raise the topic among decent company?" our
present mandarins of media scoff when the topic of class inequity is
broached.
Add to that, the ongoing ruse of the ceaseless dissemination of fear
perfected by the right-wing media noise machine and then parroted in
the mainstream media that goes something like the following:
"There are evil entities afoot in the nation known as radical
liberals who scheme to take away your guns and give them to
islamofascist terrorists so that those agents of Satan over at
Planned Parenthood will be free to rip fetuses from their mothers
wombs in order to expose the unborn to porn."
This is the reason for the cacophony of inanity that dominates the
coverage of the political events of our time: It serves as white
noise that drowns out unpleasant truths. It is the mood music piped
into our national bubble.
Accordingly, trivial and specious narratives drive and dominate our
national political debate and it has, as a consequence, rendered the
nation's public too shallow to even apprehend the extent of the
damage inflicted by official treachery, professional cupidity, and
the degree of their own degradation therein.
Otherwise, the collective psyche of the nation would be shaken to the
core. Tragically, there is no longer any core to be found.
There is merely the surface sheen of the American bubblescape ... its
surface taut with inner tension as it is stretched to its limits, as,
all the while, reality bristles ever closer to its over-stretched skin.
Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist,
is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He
may be contacted at phil@philrockstroh.com Visit Phil's website,
http://philrockstroh.com/ 
